A turntable ladder platform and a water carrier were also called to assist crews, who spent around four hours at the scene.

Graham Westbrook from Woking fire station said: “It was going quite well [when we got there]. We made our way in and at the bottom of the stairs we could see it was coming from the landing.

“It's quite an old building, and the design didn't help. The fire got into the loft space on the inside.”

The whole of the first floor was involved in the fire, and about 50% of the roof, according to crews.

Jon Fisher from Guildford fire station said: “We stopped it before it took hold of the roof. There was a lot of smoke coming from the roof and it was threatening to break through so it was quite significant.”